


Mercurial Blues

by philomel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Harvelle's Roadhouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:51:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philomel/pseuds/philomel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people look for solace at the bottom of a glass. Others see right through it.</p><p><span class="small">Slightly spoilers for “No Exit.” Set vaguely during S2.</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Mercurial Blues

She weighs her options in the time most people take to realize they have any. She splits seconds, cuts through the bullshit. Her chemistry is quicksilver, a fluid fission.

The fallout catches you every time, but you rarely see the explosion.

Ellen knows what waiting will lose you. No time should be spared, even when it can. It's not that there's no gray area, it's just that the gray area needs to be clipped, cordoned off; because gray is not the space between black and white, it's the measurement between life and death.

Bill taught her that, John moreover. And his boys paid the price, but she never meant for them to. Her life has been too short to have dwindled down to such a small number: Jo, Ash, Dean and Sam, and a revolving door of acquaintances best treated as strangers. They are outnumbered. But if she counts the odds, she'll bet on her hand every time. It's all she's got.

This boy? He ain't gonna make her fold.

He's on her side, anyway, so there wouldn't be much point. But she's not playing games. Games take too long, a luxury of time and idleness. Dean won't sit still long enough for either. Ellen sees him his playful words, razes them like a house to the ground. She sees through them for the threadbare come-ons they really are. Wasting time, she thinks, and empties the bar. It's closing time by civilized standards anyway, not that she ever took much stock in civil society. That was another kind of waste.

Dean licks the bottom of his shotglass as if it's nonchalant. Subtle fits him more poorly than a monkey suit.

Without Sam to buffer him, Ellen sees his jagged edges: the small boy jigsawed against the weathered man. She sees John there too, no denying it. And this might be the closest she'll get to Bill, three degrees of separation — but that one she'll deny, until she can't anymore. Comparisons are useless, they muddy the water. She splashes some more Jack into his glass.

He pushes it back to her.

She downs the shot and upends the glass. Game over. Whiskey trickles onto the woodgrain, spills thinly into the corners of her lips before she swallows. She swipes her mouth with the curve of her thumb, smearing beads of liquid onto her skin where they cool and evaporate in the swift movement she makes between them. Dean looks startled to have her fingers on his mouth, holding it like he's a deviant child and she's had enough of his sass. He smirks, because he is that deviant child. She tightens her grip, because she hasn't had enough.

His lips find the skin between her thumb and forefinger, and his tongue tests the give of the soft flesh there. It's about time.

Ellen may look impassable, rough terrain and obsidian eyes. Her voice sloughs out of her throat like she shed layers to tell you what she's telling you, raw and peeled back. She did and she is, but don't forget what she left behind. A woman like her keeps most of herself inside, like she keeps all valuable things. And so does a man, if Dean's any example. The boy knows how to lock himself up, but so does she. It takes an expert to dismantle a bomb.

Time's still ticking, she thinks, with her fingers in his mouth. Ticking faster, time to pull him inside out. If he's honestly ever been fearful of her, now's the time, but he's not running.

He comes to her, that's the first step. But she meets him halfway, quicker than he expects, whatever the advantage of slight sobriety. She eases herself around him, shepherding him to a dark corner. Because it's in the corners where secrets hide. Where the walls meet, they will too, pull them down if need be. Each layer is collapsible — she has the dexterity to see it through, in fingers, all ten, puddling through his clothes. Her lips deconstruct him from the top down.

Dean catches up to her slowly, more numbed by the burn of her skin revealing his than by the burn of booze still in his throat. He's a man of action too, just like her, she knows. It's a matter of mobility; he needs warming up. So she sits him down in this corner chair, pinning his legs with the spread of her thighs around him. But his breath heats her neck, knocking her off guard. She slips, molten, halfway off his lap until he catches her. Sweat slides their skin into unstable shapes. Heartbeats hammer out from the inside as if working to remold their bodies. This, Ellen learns, is real demolition: building things up to tear them down.

Their bodies collide and stick. Her hair snags in the crook of his arm, pulling until it hurts, pulling her out alive. She thinks maybe he does it on purpose, testing her, still playing the boy. But she's not gasping for him, she's not cooing. He'll have to try harder. She's not his usual girl. She's not any girl.

Ellen undoes her pants and takes Dean's hand. She eyes his ring finger and guides it down and under, then up into her, slow slip-sliding past the hem of her panties to where she's already wet. She presses him into her until she feels the metal like cold water circle beneath her lips, cut in, and she pulls him out, trailing wetness with his finger, dragging it up to her clit. His finger under hers rings around her once. She lets go; he keeps going, just like she knew he would. Her eyes are on him, her hands on his neck, counting the pulse in his veins against the revolution of his finger. It stutters off as she presses down, as he swallows, as his eyes flicker wide then grow heavy. He closes them as he opens his lips. She closes those for him too.

Two fingers slip inside her, chasing the slip of her tongue. Her mouth is too busy so she grins with her eyes, watches his flutter beneath his lids. She rakes his tongue with her teeth, and it opens him back up. Her eyes stay on his until they focus again. He'll be coming in his pants soon if she's not careful, and that's a little too efficient even for her.

"Much as I hate to, darlin'," she whispers against his ear. It's the first thing she's said since she shooed the last hunter out, and it sounds too loud in the room, too uneven, but she punctuates it with an open kiss behind his ear before slipping off his hand and standing up. His hand curls loosely on the inside of his thigh and she says, "Go on." Dean brushes over his zipper with fingers still wet from her. The metal teeth shine as they pull apart, tooth by tooth. With dry fingers, she traces the V of her open fly. His eyes seek out the shadows beneath her hands, his hands seek beneath his waistband. He licks back a shaky breath as he pulls himself out, lips dark as the head in his hand, wet and swollen.

She would go down on her knees, but his eyes are on her cunt. And she's felt his fingers inside her, still feels their absence.

She tells him to be quick. He spares a glance for Ash's door, snorts softly, then pushes himself off the seat. She lowers her jeans down over her thighs, lowers her panties next, nail poking through a tiny hole near the elastic, lets them fall below her knees. Stepping closer, he brushes the bottom of her tank where it skirts her abdomen, trips his fingers down the slope of her skin where she twitches by reflex, dips into the dense curls she hasn't bothered to shave, dragging his thumb along the inside of her thigh. It's not exactly quick, but the tease has her wetter than before, and she kisses him beneath his chin, relishing the scrape of stubble met against the scrape of nails between her legs. Growling her name, he presses harder and she twists around.

Behind her, a chair sits stacked on the table. Blame it on a conscientious patron; there's one in every few hundred, even here. Her hands encircle the legs and hold firm. She widens her stance, looks over her shoulder and doesn't say a word. Eyes say what needs saying, skin carries all the language they need. It takes a second for Dean to put them together. The heel of his hand steadies the small of her back, and he enters her with a sound that has no meaning.

Things break down here. Ellen bends deeper over the upturned chair, Dean filling her, spreading her wide. Cobwebs lace the bottom rungs, but she lets her head fall forward, lets it hold her up as Dean weighs on her. With his forehead on her back, his breath leaves a trail of heat that shoots right down her spine, meets the heat of his balls slapping lewdly against her thighs as he moves in quicker and harder thrusts. Short bursts of burn tear up her insides. His friction is catching fire. Like wires rubbing on end, searching out a spark, he dances his fingers up beneath her tank top, scratches his nails up the fabric of her bra, light and harsh. He palms her nipples through the material, holds the burn, before pulling down again. One hand cradles her hip, another steals into the nest between her thighs. He pinches her, gentle then hard. And again, and the fire starts to lick at her, she can feel it for certain now.

The tickle of his hairs against her ass distracts her, and she just wants to get off. She pushes herself on him, pushes her hand between her legs to guide his. Their fingers twine, tips rippling over her clit, as she urges him to rub harder.

When it's there, when the world drops out with only blue scorching streaks, she shudders and clenches around him. He's coming with her.

It's a slow curl up out of that, but it's always too soon. All smoke and char: dark memories of fleeting light. Ellen's got enough dark memories. They both do. Dean maybe has a whole arsenal's worth. She should keep him here, if it would do any good. Chase down this kind of ghost, the one that burns so sweet. The others can haunt the outside, and she can have the haunting of skin. But that's just foolishness and glow. She knows better. She can't hold on to Dean any more than he can to her. They're too much alike: same charge, already pushing away.

"Shit," he says, panting into her hair. He gathers it into his hand, twisting it into his palm and raising it against the back of her head. His tongue swipes at her exposed neck, lazy, tip curling up to play the smooth underside of it down the curve to her shoulder. It's enough to start her up again, and she doesn't need that.

"It's late," she says, and he takes the cue from the clip in her voice. He pulls out of her, already has his back to her when she turns around. He hands her her flannel with a barely upturned smile — it would look like a grimace to people who didn't know him better. She leans back on the table and watches him shrug on his own shirts. His eyes are sharp but not unkind. There's a tiredness there too, but she's never seen him without it. She breaks contact reflexively, looks around.

The bar needs cleaning up after, but it can wait. Sleep can't.

She mentions the beds in the back, says they're there if he needs one. But he's already heading toward the door. It doesn't surprise her; Winchesters never stay still for long.

Ellen understands the need to keep moving. It's what gets her to the end of every day.

**Author's Note:**

> Betas: raynemaiden and themoononastick.


End file.
